


Here's a Health to the Company

by Gileonnen



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Dodgy Garment History, Ennodius Quotations, Hatesex, M/M, Topping from the Bottom, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an abstract sense, Hal was aware that a prince ought to be present at his father's triumphal tournaments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's a Health to the Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speakmefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/gifts).



> My lord, some two days since I saw the prince,  
> And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford ...   
> His answer was: he would unto the stews,   
> And from the common’st creature pluck a glove,  
> And wear it as a favour; and with that  
> He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.

In an abstract sense, Hal was aware that a prince ought to be present at his father's triumphal tournaments. His attendance, though, wasn't yet a duty to which he felt bound, a compulsion tugging at him like a burr catching in his coat; to be compelled was not yet natural, but rather purely intellectual. He could consider the reasons for it impartially, without giving in to them, as though Prince Henry were a man in another country or another time.

Of course, Hotspur could scarcely muster a dram of impartiality for argument's sake. His world was one not of rain-grey and slick mud, but one of the sun's hot red on flyblown corpses and of green, shaggy hills crowding up against the River Tweed; it was a world more stark than one of black and white. Hotspur saw Hal's finger tracing idly around the rim of his cup of sack, and it filled him with a rage so hot that he could scarcely speak for it.

The prince took pleasure in baiting him. He could sit with his chin propped upon the palm of one hand, the fingers of the other slowly circling the rim of his cup, and he was the master as surely as though he sat on a throne.

"If my father wants me mounted that badly," he said, when the northerner had paused for breath, "He could have sent money for a whore."

"You'll be there if I have to drag you there myself, you ungrateful whoreson," muttered Hotspur, eyes locked on Hal's. The tips of his ears were red and his lips drawn tight, but his mad, pale eyes held steady. "Christ's wounds, you'll be there if I have to tie your corpse to a jade and whip her into the lists--"

"It's at least a little funny, really." Hal pushed himself away from the table, sitting up straight on his bench. There was a palpable tremor in the air, as though a bell had been struck lightly; all around him, a dozen men were suddenly more alert. He wondered whether Hotspur could feel their eyes on him, assessing the risk that he posed and the risk that killing him might pose to them.

If he felt it, Hotspur didn't blink. "Funny, eh?"

"I sat out the entire deposition, and now that there's a _joust_ on all of a sudden I'm indispensable." He leaned closer, close enough to trade breath and whisper secrets. Close enough for the illusion if not the substance of intimacy. "I'll be there. I'll even wear a favour."

"If there's a woman would let you wear it," Hotspur said. If he heard the women laughing behind him, he didn't turn to look at them. To him, perhaps, they weren't even women although they were as fine as pretty Kate, and likely she was as quick to leap into bed as they when the mood struck her.

"Plenty of whores have got handkerchiefs and gloves lying about," Hal answered, reaching for his cup and downing the drink in one long gulp. The sack went down lukewarm, sour and slick at the back of his throat. "Spotty handkerchiefs and loose gloves, to match their--"

" _Damn_ you, Harry!" Hotspur pushed back from the table and stood, the veins in his forehead standing out starkly. "If you weren't the king's own son I'd kill you myself."

"Don't let _that_ stop you," answered Hal, sharply. He could feel his control slipping, and he could watch that, too, with a kind of detachment. He could feel the heat rising in his own face; he knew he'd had too much to drink. "Three months ago, I was an exile's son, and who knows? The way things have been going lately, I might not be the king's son much longer."

"That you mightn't," said the other man, with a toss of his head at the gathered cutthroats. It was laughable that he felt these men were a threat to Hal, that he couldn't see that their daggers were half-unsheathed for him and only for him--that he couldn't see in their eyes that they would gladly die to defend the life of their prince.

"Come," said Hal, finally. "Let's talk outside."

"Damn place stinks to Heaven," Hotspur said, like agreement. He had said before, innumerable times, that he didn't mind the stink of a battlefield--and yet the tavern stank to Heaven. It made Hal's lips twitch up in something very like a smile.

Mistress Quickly dipped a small curtsey as they left, and took Hal's coin to settle the reckoning; Ned Poins raised his eyebrows, spinning his knife on the table, but Hal shook his head.

They weren't followed as they left.

Something in Hotspur's posture eased as he left the tavern, although he still walked stiff-legged and straight-backed. It was something in the slope of his shoulders and the set of his jaw, Hal thought--not the easing of rage, but the easing of vigilance. The warrior had no arms against the forces of depravity and debauchery, languor and liquor, and perhaps among soldiers he had given in to the temptations available to men about to die. A man like Henry Percy would've died a hundred deaths in the camps, a girl's skirts up around her hips and his eyes smashed up tight against what he was doing--

\--and the sight of it walking brazen, even in dim light, must have been altogether too clear.

"Was it the whores?" asked Hal, throat raw with the relative clarity of the air. "Couldn't stand to look at the whores?"

"It was my prince whoring himself out to the commoners," answered Hotspur tersely. "Your father woos them, but he knows their place."

"You needn't tell _me_ that they ought to be _under _me," said Hal. He smirked as the tips of Hotspur's ears went red again. "A man like you has had his share of common creatures, I'll wager--"__

__The breath went out of him before he saw Hotspur move. He felt his back hard against a beam, his fingers scrabbling against the rough earthen walls, and this, too, he watched as though from a great distance._ _

__" _You don't know anything_ ," Hotspur snarled, breathing hot and sharp. His lips (his teeth) were very close to Hal's ear, his hands heavy at Hal's hips. "You don't know what I've done or had."_ _

__"I can guess," Hal said._ _

__"You're wrong."_ _

__"You wish I were wrong." Against Hotspur's ear, intimate as a secret, Hal sang softly, " _Femina cum patitur, peragit cum turpia, mas est_ \--"_ _

__"I'll _kill_ you!" With a roar like a bear's, Hotspur seized Hal's throat and choked off the sing-song Latin, thick fingers digging into flesh until Hal was dizzy._ _

___This is what dying feels like_ , he thought, sparks dancing behind his eyes. _This is what dying is; it's submission to a merciless force that drains life too slowly and all at once--this is what God does, to those who love him and those who spurn him alike--__ _

___I'm drunk_ , he thought._ _

__Hotspur let him go, turning away with a snort of disgust. "Can't even fight for your own life?"_ _

__"You wouldn't have killed me. Then you would have had to answer for it."_ _

__"I'd have answered."_ _

__"It would have been a blot on your honour, and you wouldn't have answered _that_." Hal mustered a laugh. It hurt, and sounded small. "But I'm not wrong."_ _

__"I'm no woman," said Hotspur. That vigilance was back in the angle of his jaw, the set of his shoulders._ _

__"Your wife doesn't seem to mind it," Hal said, mildly. "But shame is shame, whatever you call yourself--and I have no shame at all."_ _

__For a moment, he thought that Hotspur would forget himself and run him through. There was a look in his eyes that Hal had seen in the eyes of murderers and alehouse brawlers, something fierce and heated and implacable; it was like the sunlight striking sheen from polished armor._ _

__Then Hotspur laughed._ _

__"I'll be following you home," he said._ _

__"If you must," said Hal. Hotspur did not follow, but rather walked alongside; there was a queer ebullience to his stride, a lift to every step that was more than pride or self-satisfaction. It was, Hal thought, a sense of anticipation._ _

__Hotspur was not a man suited to anticipation. It smacked of deferral, gratification delayed and perhaps even unsatisfied at the last; more than that, it spoke of a strategic sense that Hal hadn't thought the other man possessed. The Hotspur of the North was not known for his patience._ _

__If they'd only ducked into the nearest alley, no one would even have looked askance--and perhaps it was his ignorance more than his patience that made Hotspur pause. After Poins had spun his knife on the table and fixed Hotspur with a look like ice, it would have been all but impossible to imagine a space unwatched. Hal knew, though, that this was a place where silence could be bought, and sins could, too; one paid the whore and then paid the priest to remit the sin of using her._ _

__He'd tumbled men before, here, in the casual way that one did when one was drunk and one's friends were asses and some young buck needed to be taught a lesson about who held the power. He held no particular illusions about the nature of the act or what it betokened--they were only baiting one another again, grappling for control of the encounter. If it warmed them and eased them, so much the better._ _

__Hal's lodgings were neater than the tavern, if more sparse, and his bedding was almost clean. It wasn't altogether unpleasant to be thrown down on the bed and to have his clothes hiked up, his breeches and hose pulled aside; there was a strong hand braced between his shoulderblades for the sake of balance, the fingertips firm and steady._ _

__"Teach you to call me a woman," muttered the other man, his free hand sliding down Hal's backside until his fingertips found purchase. "Teach you to make them _laugh_ at me--"_ _

__At that, Hal couldn't help laughing, his laughter stifled only a little against his wrist. Hotspur made a thick, incoherent sound and slid a finger in deep, and the burn of it was like the burn of strong alcohol. It hurt, but asking for a bit of tallow would mean admitting that this was done for pleasure; Hal gritted his teeth and swallowed, and he could imagine the smirk on Hotspur's face. _Your prince on his hands and knees, and you think it means you've mastered him_._ _

__"You're a practiced schoolmaster," Hal told the bedclothes, although surely the other man heard it. "You introduce your pupil to the subject by degrees--"_ _

__"I'll strike you, too, if you said another word," said Hotspur, crooking his finger and twisting it roughly. There was a moment of raw agony, and then a pure pleasure that was easily more painful. The ache wrenched a laugh from Hal's throat, and he willed himself still at the touch._ _

__He wondered whether Hotspur and Kate made love like this, her face buried in the bolster and her fingers closed on the blankets as he curled a second finger inside her, as he drew his hand back to spit on his fingers. He wondered whether those heavy-knuckled hands could be turned to gentleness on her smooth curves._ _

__There was nothing of gentleness in their spit-slick fucking; Hal felt himself drawn back by his hair and rocked his hips against Hotspur's in answer. Teeth closed on his shoulder, against the pain-pleasure of the coupling or against the knowledge of his proximity--whether Hotspur had forgotten whom he was fucking, or could forget, Hal couldn't begin to guess. (Ordinary men, he thought, did not think first of their partners' tendencies and second of their own pricks. He reached down to take himself in hand.)_ _

__They finished in something very like an embrace, the both of them panting and their clothes sweat-stained. It was too close to intimacy; Hotspur pushed him away after a moment and readjusted his clothes. The layers fell neatly into place, doublet and gown and cape obscuring him. "If I don't see you at the tournament," he said, "I'll see you next in a coffin."_ _

__"I'll unseat you," Hal promised, with a small and self-satisfied smile that was only faintly edged with pain._ _

__"So long as you're there," said Hotspur brusquely--and then he let himself out._ _


End file.
